need ur input..market research

[Jockney Rebel]

would u read a book like this ..if these were the sleeve notes
i need serious opinions as i may have a publisher in tow :D

..Everything louder than everything else...or pinnochio in punk!


These were weird times, slightly troubled times,for a 20 something man in the UK. Thatcherism was at its height ,unemployment was a growth industry..there was even a band called UB40 {named after the form you took to the dole office} and 1 in 10 of us were looking for a way out.
Whether it was drugs , alcohol , politics or music.. anything to blur the edges of everyday life, stop you thinking about the shit state of things, pretend it wasn’t there or that you could change it one way or another.
This book is dedicated to all the free thinkers out there, its pretty funny in parts ,sad in others but an altogether weird account of these times through my eyes

I was and still am I think, reasonably intelligent ,fairly well educated and yet their seemed to be something wrong with the world I had come out of school into. So off I went to college and got hijacked by the Marxists,Yamaha and a Bowie obsessed nutter on the way.. a bit like getting your dinner money nicked except it was your freedom of thought that went walkies!

Some people would say that it wasn’t that bad.. that it was a time of growth but then they were privileged to begin with or part of the "greed is good” culture that started to raise its ugly head.
Me?, well I was one of those skint working class kids just trying to make sense of it all and so... equipped with a bit of education ,a knackered drum kit,me bike and a misplaced trust in the Revolutionary left.. I decided to do something about it.
This is how it went...............


..Thanks to everyone..If Ive sent you a copy of this, you re in it !! You know who you are..
Steve Ball R.I.P. mate

better frank?:D

[Jockney Rebel]

we ve got a cover in mind that ll get it banned straight away in Smiths so it guarenteed to be a seller ..... cant post it here cos its a ptt file or summat so it wont load but its funny as fuk

[Frankie]

Are you serious.. writing a book!?

Sounds interesting enough for me, being this generation.
But the, "greed is good" culture that existed then, part- What about today? It's even worse.
Just reading the sleeve notes, this would put me off.

[sharky]

I'd give it a go........
"King for a day, Skint for a fortnight"..Chaos UK

[Gix11]

I had a UB40 that we used as roach material. Got smaller everytime I got asked "have you done any work paid or unpaid since you last signed on?" Obviously I hadn't.

http://media.musictoday.com/store/bands/1149/product_medium/BGCTMR03.jpg

I'd give it a go.

[latheboy]

Shit dude .. I hope it goes well for you .. there had better be some signing going on for any member that <s>can read</s>buys the book ..
I'd prob give it a crack but it's not the sort of book i would normally read .. Unless it'll have plenty of pics:D

[HOS]

Sounds good to me.

Although this country is a thousand times worse than then.
I spent my yoof during the 70s and 80s so remember those times well.

Where have all the strong people and attitudes gone from then ?
Theres eff all left here but PC tossers !!

Sorry I digress...

[KRASH]

I read a few books
You have my ears...or eyes which ever it may be...:D

[Jockney Rebel]

right then thanks for the input guys ...if u can be bothered heres a draught of chapter 4....

Other nutters I’ve known......

All through the 80’s I attracted quite a few loonies I don’t know if it’s because I’m an understanding bloke or maybe just a soft touch but I’ll tell you about them so you can make your own mind up.
It’s ‘81 ish and I found myself hanging out with some politically radical people , and they were the sensible ones!, on the fringes were all sorts of crazy and sometimes dangerous characters number one on the list was ‘Hookey’ [don’t know where he got the nickname but it stuck... way before I knew him] .

Hookey was an ex-navy diver who’d had an unfortunate experience involving explosives and 50metres of English Channel, to explain he used to do underwater demolition for the Royal Navy; he never went into detail but apparently got a medical discharge and a full pension at the age of 25.
In a nutshell his lift didn’t go to the top floor, and with his experience and skill at blowing stuff up this made him ‘interesting’ to be around.
For example during Guy Fawkes week he decided to manufacture his own fireworks, he was staying in this squat in Eltham [occupied by the local socialists because the houses were being pulled down to make way for a highway] .
Anyway Hookey made some concoction from sugar, weed killer and solidox welding flux [a carbon based welding stuff] mixing this stuff in a big pot he explained to me how it worked. First you get a 45 gal drum, then put the mix in, about 1/8 th of the drum capacity, next you get an old flash cube [the ones you used to get with instamatic cameras] break it open so that the bulbs are exposed, connect it to a car battery with enough wire to be far enough away to be ‘safe’….via a switch of course….!!
Dangle the bulbs just above the mix and put a paving slab on top of the barrel for stability.
We all hid behind the sofa...while Hookey assembled this contraption in the back garden I don’t know if we really believed if it would work ….our lack of faith was to be short lived!
This thing went off with the proverbial bang! Shattering windows down the street and covering us in glass, as we peered over the sofa the sight that greeted us was akin to a scene from the blitz.
The garden had a huge crater in it with bits of metal drum scattered all over the place, god knows where the paving slab landed! In the distance you could hear the sound of sirens …someone obviously called the fire brigade, or so we thought, turns out that a guy whose parents lived up the road was in the army and being the 80’s he obviously thought the IRA were at it [god knows why they’d want to blow up Eltham but there you go] .
We had Police, Army bomb disposal guys, firemen and allsorts in the street. Eventually we were fingered and Hookey got carted off to explain it all, he actually looked quite proud of himself but like I said he was a complete loon!
You’d have thought he d be discouraged from further attempts at explosions but this was to be one in many such incidents spanning that year. We weren’t prone to upsetting him I can tell you…..

Another bloke I once knew who was a mechanic injured himself changing a clutch on an old M.G. He then proceeded to down a couple of strong beers and stitch the 4 inch gash in his arm up with fishing line! We didn’t call him Mad Mick for nothing…
Mick was about 6 foot tall had a bedraggled appearance that made him look older than his 20 something years, and a mean streak a mile wide. He drove an old 1970”s Vauxhall Cresta that he d souped up . It had only 2 seats ,the rear of the car being taken up by the speakers from a big bass guitar amp [he removed the back seats and fitted them in their place] bear in mind this was 1982 and commercial hi power car amps weren’t available.
So this car looked like a refugee from MadMax and sounded like Black Sabbath were actually playing on the back shelf ! He might as well have painted ‘arrest me ‘on the boot lid, added to this he liked a drink so inevitably he got stopped by the forces of law and order on a few occasions.

One other notable acquaintance of mine was a gentleman whom we called “Geez” mainly because that’s what he called everyone else … he was a security guard when I first encountered him and used to turn up at Stan’s regularly.
One night in particular he turned up at my flat at about 2am in the morning Stan and I plus some others had been indulging in the age old art of mind expansion ,favoured by the North American Indians ,{ in other words trippin’ out of our minds on magic mushrooms} , Anyway ‘Geez’ turns up wearing his security guards uniform and knocks on the door .. I naturally look thru the letter box to see who’s there and was confronted by the sight of shiny buttons on a dark blue tunic …’course I thought it was the old bill and panicked, so did everybody else ,when we‘d secreted the evidence we opened the door to find this dozy looking individual with glasses like the bottoms of coke bottles grinning inanely, dressed like a copper!

He stayed about 2 hours, not understanding that he’d freaked everyone out, and being the only straight one there he became a hilarious diversion for us.
He reminded me of Beaker from the Muppets [for those of you not familiar with the said character, he was the mad scientists assistant who invariably got blown up every week] we invariably started fuckin with his head , that was enough to set me off laughing hysterically and the more he didn’t get it the more we creased up in pain with hilarity..
Thanks Geez, for that .....where ever you are, thanks mate.

Next on the list was a man i met whilst doing the last year of my apprenticship in '82 ,Andy... now Andy was the sort of bloke who could shout without raising his voice a sort of talent that made him very scarey ...for instance he would have some guy gettin on him about something [this happened quite often as he was our local amateur pharmacist ] and without breaking a sweat would shut the bloke up in minutes . It didnt hurt that he was a big guy and he just been kicked out of the Paras for putting his drill instructor in hospital permanently!
So apart from that he was a really well spoken, well mannered [private education had helped] man,
One night in late 1982 .. ,6 of us were living in a house in Rochester Way ,Blackheath, It was about 2am and the front door landed on the hallway floor closely followed by 3or 4 big coppers [i was sleeping in the ground floor back room at the time]this woke the whole house up .whilst we were gathering our thots and coming round from the previous nights antics, we heard a painful scream coming from the kitchen and the sound of breaking glass ..this was our one man army Andy throwing a plain clothes detective back thru our kitchen door ,,now devoid of its glass...apparently one oof our 'mates'had been nicked in Kent on his bike carrying about an ounce of Colombias finest marching powder , and when the local plod had done a search of his rooms at the local Uni in Tonbridge had found a letter form us stating that "we 'd found his gear and would he come up and pick it up"....the "gear " referred to was actually his personal effects and stuff but obviously the Old Bill had made there mind up it was us nasty hippy / biker types up to no good as usual and therefore ordered an assault on our house .
I must admit it was worth it getting woken up that early to see their D.I.s face when he had to apologise to us for the damage caused by there total incompetance , but hey this WAS the 80's and paranoia was rife. Had they looked a little closer they would found enough to put some of us away for a bit ,,,,,,,,,,,
hippies -1 old bill -0
By the way Andy is now doing 20-30yrs in a Thai prison for being the bodyguard of a major drug smuggler ..oh and putting 2 thai police officers in traction ........happy days

[Learnatic]

Sounds like a great read,I'm keen.

[rod185651]

Just read your draft, love it mate
cheers Rod

[Jockney Rebel]

nice one guys ....ta

[oldskool]

Good luck mate !
Those times were hard for all shit I became a Skinhead to get through it all.

[Jockney Rebel]

ta old skool i was a long haired metal hippy space cadet lol

[oldskool]

Sorry if you were one of the ones I smacked in the mouth.
My how times and brains change.

[Jockney Rebel]

nah i never had much trouble ,,my brother was a right wing skinhead and we lived in the same house !!also the younger bro was a punk..it was like livin in a young ones episode

[mattypom]

I Started of a mod,got pissed of and became a skinhead,started to get into heavy rock and then realised i loved jap fours and started riding my first z900 lowrider,THESE WERE THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. Look forward to a good read Jockey

[Jockney Rebel]

ta itll mean more to the ex pats here reference wise , but i never realised how many real laffs i had and how much weird shit i got up to then..but i guess thats what happens when u dont get grow up til ur forty odd lol

[The crow]

mate sounds like a great read best of luck with it all let us all now when its in print and where we can get it. Being ex military some of those antics sound all so familiar famous last words " its only a small one " And if you've made it his far through all that then you got a lot left in you yet and this may just be the start of something big

[Jockney Rebel]

ta crow ...my old man was a Regimental Scarey Monster so i guess that makes me an Army brat.... sort of grew up around army camps all over Europe in the 60's
and i hope yer right i could do with givin up this workin for a livin lark

[Hagarr]

Jock life as we know it has never been and ever will be a dress rehersal. Sometimes I tell the young fella's some of the "Old Day's" stories and sometimes even I have to stop and think fuck DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN. Yep sure fucking did. That's why our kidney's and Livers are so fucken damaged today. Mate if you can put those life stories into some form of book I can read put me down for one I'm sure it'll be a blast from the past.[^]

[Jockney Rebel]

ta Danny .......most of this is set in London but im still a Jock wherever i am ..and ur right some of this stuff i dont believe myself but ..there u have it and uve just given me another alternative title
"its life Jim ,but not as we know it "..the last chapter should be a a killer and get me in court[when i get round to writing it]!lol ..! [i was a chauffeur for a company that did Warner bros records and the uk govt in 1989]